Just Give Me A Reason (plus ten more)
by CodependentCollision
Summary: Chloe thinks she and Beca are ready to move in together, but Beca isn't convinced.


It's embarrassing, really.

They're at dinner, Beca and Chloe and Jesse and Amber, having a perfectly reasonable conversation about how the summer Olympics have dumber sports than the winter Olympics ("Nothing is dumber than speed walking," Beca argues. "Okay?") when Chloe decides to go all subject changey on her and says, "Becs. We should move in together."

"Speaking of things that nothing is dumber than," Beca says, and Jesse hides his laughter behind his pint of beer. "Where did that even come from? Is there an Olympic moving event?"

"That would be so cool," Jesse says.

"There could be classifications like in track," Amber fills in. "The One Bedroom Apartment Men's Move Out. And the Five Bedroom Mansion Teams Division." Jesse laughs and rests his head on Amber's shoulder for a few seconds, before being gently nudged off.

Chloe huffs and leans forward, palms on the table. "Guys," she says, slowly, like she's dealing with lesser intelligence or something. Which... okay. "Guys, I'm seriously serious."

"This is serious business," Jesse murmurs, clearly not understanding the urgency of the situation quite as keenly as Beca does.

"No, she's right," Beca says, looking first at Jesse and then at Amber. She cannot believe she is even having this conversation. In front of their friends. In a public place. "This is serious." She turns to Chloe, glaring now. "You are seriously mental, do you know that?"

Digging her fork into her salad, Chloe shrugs. "Well I mean," she starts. "I _am_ crazy about you." She gives Beca a weak smile, but Beca is having none of this, and gives Chloe her sternest frown. "We've been together for a little while now," Chloe offers.

Beca interrupts: "Only seven months," and she doesn't let Chloe go on. "Where did this even come from? Two minutes ago we were talking about beach volleyball and now you want to move in with me?"

"I've wanted to for a while," Chloe says, and the look she gives Beca is kind of a mix between heartbreaking and heartmelting. "And it was listening to them talk about watching TV together at night." She nods at Amber and Jesse as she talks, and Jesse takes Amber's hand, looking guiltily anywhere but at Beca, who hopes that Jesse didn't have anything to do with this foolishness.

That's the second stupidest thing Beca's ever heard, coming in closely behind the suggestion that they move in together at all. "We can do that anyway. We _do_ do that anyway." Chloe opens her mouth to say something, but Beca puts her hand up, cutting her off. "Give me one _good_ reason why we should move in together."

"I could give you nine," Chloe scoffs.

"Why nine?" Amber asks. She glances over at Jesse, and then back at Chloe.

"Ten is such a cliche," Chloe says, grinning at Beca.

"I want eleven," Beca says. "Give me eleven good reasons why we should move in together."

She nods, and waits, and Chloe waits, and Jesse waits, and Amber clears her throat before excusing herself to go to the bathroom.

Figures, Chloe can't even come up with _any_ real reasons. Beca frowns. "I thought you could give me all these reasons why we should move in together." She leans her shoulder in toward Chloe and bumps her, then straightens back up again.

Their server approaches and sets a black folder down, the receipt neatly tucked inside it. "Oh, I can," Chloe says. She pulls her wallet out and slides her credit card into the folder, then holds it out of reach from Beca and Jesse until their server comes back and takes it away again. "I just want to take my time on this, since it's important." She leans in toward Beca, one elbow on the table. "When I give you eleven good reasons why you should move in with me, you have to do it." She licks her lips and smirks. Beca kinda wants to punch Chloe in the face; but afterward, she definitely wants to have lots of sex with her. "Deal?"

Knowing that there is absolutely no way that Chloe could come up with eleven good reasons for them to move in together, she nods shortly. "Deal."

"I'm bearing witness on this," Jesse says, grinning. "This is going to be so good."

Chloe grins at him, too. "I know. I can't wait to move her into my house."

And while Jesse begins giving Chloe notes on how to live with Beca, she starts to think that maybe - just maybe - she's not giving Chloe the credit she deserves.

* * *

Beca was absolutely not giving Chloe the credit she deserves.

And she really shouldn't be surprised that by the time she gets home (Chloe said she had an early breakfast meeting, and had to leave at the crack of dawn, so there was no point in Beca coming home with her, or the other way around), Chloe has already left a message on her answering machine.

"Reason number one," she practically crows in her message. "If we were living together, I wouldn't have wasted ten minutes convincing you that we shouldn't go home together tonight. We would have just gone home. And then we could have been together tonight, instead of this happening."

And that is definitely the sound of a zipper going down, and with anybody else, Beca might assume it's being faked, to prove a point. But Beca knows, because she knows _Chloe_, that this is really truly happening. "God Beca," Chloe says, already gasping. "If you were here now, I'd be on my knees for you. Burying my face between your legs." She gasps again, and whimpers, and Beca stops the message too late for it to matter.

Now she's wet, too.

* * *

Reasons two and three come while Beca is at work. They come in a spreadsheet, sent via email to Jesse, for no apparent reason other than Chloe wants to keep Jesse involved. Because she's an ass.

"I think this is for you," Jesse says.

Beca glances quickly at the spreadsheet Jesse's holding as he leans, annoyed, against the wall of Beca's office. "What is it?"

"Personal information I never give to anybody," Jesse says. He shoves the paper at Beca's face and then turns to shuffle back to his own office.

The spreadsheet has a detailed comparison of the costs of Jesse's home - gas, electric, cable, rent - next to the same information from Chloe. On the other side of Chloe's column is a blank column, labeled with Beca's name, along with instructions on how to find out how much money they would save if they were living together.

As soon as Chloe picks up her phone, Beca says, "You don't have to tell me how to do basic math," Beca says.

"I just figured you didn't know," Chloe says calmly. "Since you're so against moving in together." Frustrated, Beca sputters and puts her head in her hand.

Beca can practically see Chloe's big fat stupid grin as she waits for Beca to come up with some sort of witty response. She's got nothing, really. "Okay so reason number two is that we'd save money?"

"It is," Chloe quickly agrees.

Beca grins. "Well I don't want to move in with somebody for something like money." She's about to argue that love needs to be involved, but there's no question that there is no lack of love between her and Chloe, for some stupid reason that Beca can't quite comprehend at times like this.

"I don't either," Chloe says. "But imagine the bump in our quality of life if we were sharing the responsibilities of maintaining a home?" And before Beca can actually imagine anything, Chloe continues, "First of all, we'd have more money and opportunities to do things together. Second of all, we'd have more money and opportunities to take care of the little things that normally we have to let slide, like taking care of a toothache," which okay, was a low blow, a month is not too long for a tooth to hurt, and that only happened _the one time_. "And thirdly, you know you stress about getting your bills paid at the end of the month all the time. Imagine how easy it would be if the two of us were working on it together. And now imagine how much better everything would just seem." She takes a deep breath and then says, "That's my reason number three."

When Chloe finishes talking, Beca closes her eyes. That was a pretty good reason number three; much better than reason number two, actually. And more logical than reason number one. "That's only three reasons," Beca finally says. She grips her phone because already she can feel herself wavering, but no. Seven months is just not enough time to be with someone before moving in together. Beca needs more time; everybody should take more time. "But they're duly noted." She swallows hard and takes a deep breath. "I gotta go, Chloe. I'll talk to you later."

"I love you, baby," Chloe coos into the phone.

"Don't call me-" Beca starts, but Chloe's already hung up. Beca sighs and sets her phone down.

Then she shoots off an email to Jesse, reminding him as to whose side he should be on.

* * *

A week passes without Chloe saying anything else about moving in together, which should be a comfort to Beca, but it just sets her on edge. This probably means that Chloe is planning something incredibly stupid.

A week and three days after reasons two and three, Chloe and Beca go out to a movie and then grab some dinner to bring to Chloe's.

They're making out on the couch when Chloe murmurs "bedroom" and Beca doesn't need to be asked twice. She does, however, do a double-take when in the bedroom, on the ceiling, she spies a colorful piece of art that includes a fork, a cow, a moon and a dish all in questionable positions. Beca's never been on an acid trip before, but she imagines that if she had been, it would look an awful lot like Chloe's ceiling. "Chloe," she says, even as Chloe is pawing at her clothes. "Chloe, what is that?"

"My new art," Chloe whispers, sliding her hands under Beca's shirt.

It feels good, it does; Beca _shivers_ it feels so good. But the dish, man, the dish is seriously _leering_ at Beca. "But I mean seriously. What is it?"

"It's my new art," Chloe says again. She pushes Beca's shirt up, and Beca goes through the motions of sitting up, of raising her arms so Chloe can tug it and then her bra off, but the art. It's still there. It's still right fucking there. She falls back down on the bed and okay, that thing that Chloe's doing to her nipple with her tongue? That's very good. That's very, very good.

Beca closes her eyes and moans, pushing her hands through Chloe's hair and arching her back. Then she opens them again and okay, she doesn't know what that fork is doing to the cow but it absolutely cannot be kosher.

It's all a very unsexy mess, even with Chloe breathing heavily on her. "Chloe, I just. Can't we." She nudges at Chloe, and Chloe pulls back, grinning at her.

It's all very unlike Chloe to grin about sex being stopped in the middle, unless- "Oh my God. You asshole."

"Reason number four," Chloe says contritely. "If we're living together, you have a say in all of my home decor decisions, and can keep me from making disastrous ones."

"You could just not make bad decisions," Beca says, shifting over so that she won't have to look at the painting anymore. "You could just not buy ugly shit. Or you could just ask for my opinion anyway."

"My home," Chloe says, snuggling up to Beca and pressing her face in Beca's neck. "My bad decisions." She kisses at Beca's neck, letting her hands run over Beca's stomach and then down to her fly.

But Beca knows that the stupid fork is still leering at her. "Chloe," she gasps, putting her hand on Chloe's. "Let's go back into the other room. Please."

"Just close your eyes," Chloe says, kissing Beca's chest.

Beca closes her eyes, but she can still see the fork. "I can't," Beca groans.

Chloe laughs. And can't stop.

* * *

If Beca thinks four is stupid, five is even worse. Chloe shows up at her door with a Costco card in her hand, and happily hands it over to Beca. "What is this?" Beca asks. Immediately, she knows it's a stupid question to ask someone like Chloe.

"It's a Costco card," Chloe says. "So we can buy in bulk."

Flabbergasted, Beca blinks stupidly before saying, "But why would we need to buy in bulk?"

Chloe looks at her equally stupidly and says, "Oh. If we were living together, we could buy in bulk. And have big trips to the Costco where we feast on samples before we go home and argue over where we're going to put the giant vat of mayo we just _had_ to buy." She smiles winningly at Beca and for two seconds she's convinced. Then Beca remembers they're talking about _Costco_ and not anything relevant.

"Chloe," she starts, but Chloe is off and running.

"If we're not living together, it's just a waste of food. And a waste of money because I bought the card and I have it for a _year_ Beca." She presses the card into Beca's palm and looks at her with wide eyes. "Beca, I'm already wasting money per reason number two. If you keep up with this stubbornness, I'm going to be broke, and out on the street, and then you'll have to take me in. And then we'll be living together anyway." Beca doesn't think it would work out quite like that. "Don't make my destitution come into this, Beca. That's just sad."

"You're just sad," Beca says. "Go away."

"Give me back my Costco card," Chloe says, putting her hand back out for it. "I'm getting a hot dog."

Sitting in the warehouse and eating kosher dogs with "complimentary" pops beside them, Beca is forced to admit that reason number five is a pretty good one.

Chloe puts ketchupy fists up in victory.

* * *

Three nights later, reason number six is Chloe's insistence that since she's the guest at Beca's home, she doesn't need to help with dinner or its cleanup, do the dishes, or be of any sort of assistance whatsoever. It's bullshit, and they both know it, so when Chloe smugly tells Beca that if they lived together, this wouldn't happen, Beca actually kicks Chloe out of her apartment.

Which is reason number seven, though Beca doesn't particularly see a downside to being able to kick Chloe out of her apartment.

Beca is arguing this point with Chloe via email when Jesse steps into her office and sits down heavily in Beca's extra chair. "What's up?" Beca asks without looking around. Her fingers move angrily along the keys, as if the force of her typing will somehow make the email mean more. Or something.

"I don't know," Jesse says and Beca stops typing for a few seconds, listening to the silence that follows Jesse's words.

There's something not right, she can feel it straight off, so she types out a quick 'BRB JESSE' to Chloe and sends the email on its way before turning to face him. "What's up?" she asks again, and this time it's sincere.

Jesse takes a deep breath and doesn't say anything at first. He picks at a loose thread in his pants at his knee and drops his head down. "Amber is being weird," he finally says, when Beca thinks she may have to bust out the early lunch routine. "Like, I don't." He sighs and picks his head up, frowning.

"You don't what?" Beca asks, glancing up once when somebody walks by her office. She looks back at Jesse and tilts her head to the side. "Dude, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," Jesse says in that way that he has when he _does_ but he just doesn't want to say anything. He sighs and stands, pushing up with his hands on his thighs. "I'm sorry Becs," he says.

Beca watches him walk away, and is about to go after him when her phone rings.

She makes a mental note to go to Jesse about this later.

* * *

Reason eight, Chloe admits, is the fact that if they were living together she wouldn't have to come up with eleven reasons they should move in together. "That's weak," Beca says. They're relaxing on the sofa in Beca's living room, but Beca is mostly concentrating on her cell phone, silently staring back at her. She called Jesse earlier, worried about her after he hadn't shown up to work, and still hasn't heard anything back. "You can do better than that."

"I know I can," Chloe says. She pokes at Beca's thigh and then rests her chin on Beca's shoulder. "But it's still a valid joke. This is hurting my brain."

"You're a really bad advertiser," Beca says absently, "if you can't even sell me on moving in with you."

Chloe's finger jabs roughly into Beca's thigh, and it's the complete opposite of sexy. "That was just mean," she says. "Now what's up with the staring at the phone? He'll call."

"I know but..." Beca sighs and Chloe presses her mouth to Beca's cheek, letting it sit there. "Chloe," she says, "that's gross."

"Reason number nine," Chloe says after pulling back from Beca. "If Jesse's relationship is falling apart, we could invite him to stay in OUR guest room."

Beca snorts. "Yes. Because guys that are in dying relationships totally want to go and hang out with a couple completely in love." As soon as the words are out of her mouth she feels her cheeks flush. She's pretty sure she's never said that before. And she's a lot more sure when Chloe crawls onto her lap and kisses Beca so hard her brain shuts down.

She comes to when her phone rings.

* * *

Jesse doesn't officially move into Beca's apartment, since it's weird to call it 'move in' when he's just sleeping on Beca's futon and keeping two suitcases tucked in Beca's closet. He certainly stops sleeping at home, however, the same day Amber admits that she's met someone else, and she thinks it's real.

Chloe and Beca spend the first week making sure that one of them is always over at Beca's, just in case. Chloe doesn't say anything, but she doesn't have to for Beca to know she's thinking that this is reason number ten, and Beca can't really disagree. Of all the reasons Chloe's given her so far of why they should move in together, being able to be around for their friends is the best so far.

After a week Beca starts spending more time at Chloe's, giving Jesse some space. "This is a good reason for us not to move in together," Beca says. "This way I have someplace to go when Jesse wants to be alone."

Chloe looks at her, but doesn't say anything, and replayed back in her head, Beca can admit it doesn't make a lot of sense. "You know what I mean," she finally says.

"I do," Chloe says. "You're a good friend. It's why I love you."

"I thought it was because I cook for you." Beca smiles at Chloe and then leans in for a kiss.

Against Beca's lips, Chloe murmurs, "I like that too, but I love how you are."

Beca melts into her.

* * *

A little over a month after the breakup, Jesse comes home from the grocery store with an armful of free apartment guides, along with the frozen pizzas and bags of vegetables he had gone to get. "Doing some light reading?" Beca asks when Jesse drops down onto the couch, the stack still in his arms.

"I can't sleep on your couch forever," Jesse says. He glances over at Beca with a frown. "No offense."

"None taken," Beca says, and she agrees. "Want some help?"

Jesse nods, but they're only flipping for a few minutes before Jesse flops to the side, his forehead banging against Beca's shoulder. "I can't do this," he moans.

"Maybe there's a place available here," Beca says. She places her hand on Jesse's head and pats it gently. "Want me to ask at the landlord?"

"Yeah," Jesse says, his voice is muffled by Beca's shirt.

"You want a beer?" she asks after a quiet minute.

"Yeah," Jesse says.

Beca waits another minute or so and then says, "You wanna get off me so I can get it for you?"

Jesse grunts and doesn't move.

* * *

The next day at work, Beca calls her apartment manager to ask about any spaces available. Afterward, she takes her cell phone, goes outside and calls Chloe. She answers with, "Hey there sexyface."

"Please tell me you got caller ID," Beca says. "Because if you're answering the phone like that, I'm going to have to wonder what kind of advertising you guys are really doing over there."

Chloe laughs and doesn't bother answering Beca's question; she says, "What's up?" and is then silent with the exception of heavier than normal breathing.

"What are you doing?" Beca asks. "And can you please stop?" Chloe laughs, but her breathing normalizes and Beca continues. "I called my apartment office and there aren't any open spaces right now."

"How can there not be any apartments available?" Chloe asks. "Your complex totally sucks."

Beca rolls her eyes and puts her hand to her forehead. "He needs a place to go," she says quietly. "I want Amber to get out of their fucking condo."

"She's not going to," Chloe says. "I gotta go. I'm sorry."

"Love you," Beca says. She hangs up the phone and scrubs her hand over her face.

She takes half the day off and goes out to the pier to sit on a bench, eat cinnamon almonds and think.

* * *

Chloe is already at the apartment when Beca gets there; she and Jesse are eating pita chips and hummus. "Hey," Chloe says. "Jesse and I are having a party." Jesse lifts a glass of wine in agreement.

"I can tell," Beca says. She smiles and then makes room for herself on the sofa, puts her feet on the low table in front of them. She presses a hand to Chloe's knee and squeezes it quickly, then turns to Jesse. "I stopped by the management office before I came home."

"Oh yeah?" Jesse says, his mouth half-full of hummus. "Any good news?"

"Yeah." Beca squeezes Chloe's knee again, and she can feel Chloe stiffen beside her. "One place opened up."

Jesse sits up, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and grins. "That's awesome. We can be neighbors."

"Yeah um," Beca turns to Chloe and smiles at her. "I found an eleventh reason to move in with you."

Chloe grins wide, and leans in toward Beca. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Beca leans in and kisses Chloe quickly, then pulls back. "If the offer still stands, I'd like-"

"Yes." Chloe says quickly. She puts her hands over Beca's and squeezed it hard. "Yes. I'd love that. Yes. You should."

Beca laughs and nods, then lets Chloe pull her forward with her hand behind her neck. They kiss, and kiss hard, and Beca finds herself melting into Chloe. She's scared about taking this next step, especially given what's just happened with Jesse.

And yet... she's happy with her decision. And now that she's made it, she's looking forward to doing it. She puts her hand into Chloe's hair and tugs on it a little, so that Chloe moans softly.

"I'm going to go," Beca hears Jesse say from a million miles away. "I'm going to go right now."


End file.
